Entre Les Murs

Bercy Bound

Having calculated that we could visit a museum every month throughout our sojourn here and still not see them all, we stirred ourselves yesterday - despite a fine drizzle and some inertia on the part of my poor over-worked wife - to continue our exploration of the city. We selected as our destination the European House of Photography in the 4th arrondissement, which, alas, turned out to be closed for the hanging of the next exhibition. Lacking a plan B, we instead went meandering in the general direction of the Bastille and found ourselves in an area that dubbed itself St. Paul Village. And here we stumbled across the Museum of Magic.

This little museum focuses on the time, and to some extent the person, of Robert Houdini, and had exhibits of the devices used by Victorian magicians, including automatons and optical illusions. There was a magic show about once an hour with a very competent magician performing some close-up magic tricks. Unfortunately for us, his patter came a little too quickly, and we missed most of the jokes. The place was crawling with children and the staff played up to them so that there was more of a circus atmosphere than your usual museum hush.

Janet had read of a place called Chai 33 that was a bar, shop and restaurant devoted to wine. It seemed likely we could have a tasting there, so we headed to Bercy, to the Southeast in the 12th, where it was located. There we found the Cour Saint-Emilion, a pleasant and lively area for shopping and strolling, too new to interest the tourist horde. The tasting aspect of Chai 33 was less in evidence than the bar and restaurant, and being still a little early for dinner, we settled in the lounge with a view of the park - where our snack wound up serving as dinner anyway.

posted 12.3.06